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Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Is Electoral Reform Designed to Fail?

When
the Liberals won their majority government I was consoled by two things: Harper
would leave office, and hopefully end constitutional rot; and Trudeau had
promised, unequivocally, electoral reform. As I have written on this blog
before, electoral reform was the animating issue that got me involved in
politics. There is growing evidence that the Liberals are preparing to break
that promise.

The
Electoral Reform Committee released its report last week. The committee
recommended a referendum on proportional representation. Though the NDP and
Green representatives provided a supplement saying that they did not believe a
referendum was specifically needed. The result may be the worst of both worlds
for the Liberals. They didn't want a referendum and prominent voices within the
party do not want proportional representation. Aaron Wherry wrote an excellent
summary of the direct fallout here. Following the report's release Minsiter Monsef began to mock and distance the
government from the committee's report saying the was disappointed that they
had not recommended an electoral system. This was rich given that it was not in
their mandate.

Monsef
further embarrassed herself and her government by mocking the formula the Gallagher Index, which shows how closely a government represents the proportion
of votes received by each party. Monsef was prepared with printed copies of the formula. This wasn't a fluke, it
was a plan. Electoral reform often wrecks on the shores of complication. For
all the problems with First-Past-the-Post it is simple. Trying to explain an
alternative quickly to a disengaged public is very difficult.

Yesterday,
claiming that the government required further consultation, https://www.mydemocracy.ca/
was launched. I would encourage any reader to take the survey, because why not?
But as you take it I think you'll find that there are some serious issues on
the questions. They fail to tease out
what voters actually want in terms of their electoral system, i.e. do you want
the House of Commons to reflect the percentage of votes the parties receive?
Should a party that does not get a majority of votes receive a majority of the
seats in the House of Commons? Perhaps I am revealing my own bias with the
second, but the questions are at times "push" questions designed to
illicit certain responses.

Canadians
on Twitter took to mocking the Trudeau government with the hashtag
#rejectedERQs (rejected electoral reform questions). It is amusing but also
disheartening because it is more evidence that the fix is in. With the
conclusion of this survey the Liberals will be well poised to suggest that a)
more consultation is required, b) there is no consensus, c) that Canadians are
content with the system as is.

If
electoral reform is to happen it will almost certainly not occur before 2019
now. Stalling by the government seems to make that clear and if a referendum is
going to happen the laws surrounding referenda needs to be updated. To be
clear, I want to give kudos to the member of the Electoral Reform Committee,
including the Liberals. At the end they seem to have engaged in the process in
good faith. I believe it is the government who is meddling now. I haven't
abandoned hope yet, but the government holds all the cards on this one.
Electoral reform will only under rare circumstances become an issue of
importance. However, PEI's recent vote may be a sign of hope, though their
government's reaction may be the ultimate warning. The status quo is hard to overturn.